Tea House of the Revenant
by Equivalence
Summary: AU Trees laugh, orchids sob, and needles purge the blood of lies and devastation. Witness the anarchy of the human mind. Only a single cure shall suffice. A simple game of exchange. Your sanity for a price...


**Title**: Tea House of the Revenant

**Author**: Homunculus

**Disclaimer**: Do not and never have owned Gravitation.

**Warnings**: Lots of rain, worms, boredom, and weird perspectives.

**Author notes**: This story was inspired by the comic Yumekui Kenun (The Record of Devoured Dreams).Prologue is meant to be confusing but please let me know if you have no idea what is going on. I ensure you that things will get less confusing as the story gets going.

I encourage any and all criticism (fames included) so please tell me what you think.

Prologue: An Implication of Worms 

_A dedication. _

_To all those who never came back from where they were going. _

_And to all those who never truly left… _

Days pretty much all start the same way. The alarm clock responds in its usual repetitive clanging. And after convincing your unresponsive body to move, but not without the occasional creak, you remorsefully leave your room and drowsily stumble out into the drab colored hallway. Grinning up at the ceiling, you take in familiar site of the yellow cigarette stained walls. Yawing as you breathe in the early morning smell of moldy socks you continue to the bathroom.

Wincing at the feel of cool bathroom tiles underneath foot, you pull bath the rubber ducky shower curtain. Sighing with relief you let the water ride down your spine. Like any drug, you keep coming back for more, no matter the cost. The scalding water burns old blisters, and awakens new ones. Sighing with the burn of addiction, you stand in silence until your thirst has been sated. Or at least for the time being.

Upon exciting your steaming prison, you come across a familiar face. You smile at the same green eyes you both share. The mused brown hair and tan round face. The simple yet warming smile which hides your slight cross bite. Laughing, you wave good bye leaving an old friend suspended one again in the accustom darkness. Unreflecting he stands. Welling up with no other emotion other than those portrayed by you, he waits.

"Yes, please," he sighs," lets do this again some time."

After dressing in a mix matched outfit of navy blue gym shorts, an orange tank top, and pink toe socks, you shuffle over to the kitchen. Breakfast, as always, consists of what ever you happen to come across. This morning the meager cupboards produce a box of stale fruit loops. After grabbing a slightly chipped bowl, you, once again, shuffle over to the living room. Gingerly as possible, you place your mismatched body upon the expired coach but to no avail. The sudden stress produces an unhealthy groan from within the springs. You tell yourself more out of reflex than actual sincerity that someday you will replace this old box of broken springs. But in reality you know that you will never do such a thing. For couches, like every thing else in this world worth doing, cost money which has never been your strong point. _Whoever came up with the saying money makes the world go round_? you think while shoveling a spoon full of mushy cereal into your mouth, _was a sick sadistic bastard_.

After circling through your whole six channels, you end the fruitless search because you realize that nothing is on besides a Spanish soap opera and old reruns of Full House. Although given the choice between the two of them the soap opera did not sound all that bad. Shaking your messy head, you turn off the TV and resume eating in silence accept for your occasional yet obnoxious chewing.

Leaving your dirty dish on the coffee table to clean later, you resume standing and watching your surroundings. Waiting for something to happen, you tend to drive yourself crazy. If boredom was a disease than you would have surely died by now. Rambling around for what seems like hours, you turn to gaze out your foggy front windows. Specks of snow have begun to fall as a cool breeze blows to rap on the window sill. Chilling bells ring by your modest window announcing the current hour.

Five o'clock

Sighing, you push yourself away from the sill and proceed toward your phone. Breakfast felt like days ago, and frankly you're hungry. After hanging up the phone you collapse on the coach, ignoring all sounds of protest.

You are waiting. Waiting for something to change. That great change that will alter everything else that is to follow. That is why you are here, you remember. Not for the pathetically small, three room apartment. Not for the yellow tinged walls or the wonderful view of the hazy city. You are simply waiting for something to change. Something to happen. Someone to come.

You smile at the solace of old memories. Life was truly grand when one had purpose. A sudden knock wakes you from your hazy fantasies. Suddenly, realizing what the pounding means you perk up at the promise of food.

Sauntering over to the door in your pink socks, you open the door with such vigor it is a wonder why no is scared by such enthusiasm.

You stand

Shocked by the sight before your hungry eyes.

Perhaps today wouldn't be so boring after all…

Water falling in predictable patterns. Pelting those who got caught in its redundancy. Washing away the chalk etched drawings on the flooded sidewalks. Lost to the drowned streets of New York, the sound of sloshing boots could be heard echoing off the vacant buildings. A shivering silhouette fruitlessly made its way through the onslaught of undesirable weather. Wet wind whipped its way through the dregs of blonde hair which clung to the vagabond's pale forehead. Grumbling, he pulled the sodden trench tighter around his broad shoulders.

The water had barley begun to rise yet before his eyes, Eiri Yuki saw the water climb like ivy up the city walls. Never trust a weather man or anyone else for that matter. For nothing good can come of it. Grumbling about the need for swim trunks Eiri turned down yet another stewed street crawling with the after taste of waterlogged rats and fast food.

The sinking buildings and unrecognizable streets proved no disregard. Never once did the pale man consult a map or ask for directions. Never once did he become lost in the maze of concrete and graffiti for Eiri had no idea where his feet took him as he, rain-drenched, trudged aimlessly in a world of little clarity.

The confused city reeked of entropy and repentance. Wiping the water out his blue eyes, Eiri blinked at the hazy landscapes in an attempt to get his bearings. It had been hours since he had begun this trek of his and still, was oblivious to the fact that he had absolutely no idea where he was. Having no problems, the odd twist and turns, having confronted Eiri, never second guessed whether or not he truly knew where he was. Sighing with frustration, Eiri began to feel the effects of trudging through knee deep water. The leather studded boots, he had just bought the day before, were beginning to leak. Even though they were guaranteed to last even the most monstrous weather. _Should never have gone to Wal-Mart to begin with_, he thought,_ stupid super saver coupons_.

Having finally left the mangled city streets, the sodden man continued at steady pace having set for him self. Peering from out from under his hood Eiri glanced at the new yet somehow familiar view that surrounded him. Stark white houses littered the sides of the road. The definition of perfection. Each one exactly the same as the last. Harboring covert secretes and betrayals. Smirking at the very idea, Eiri kept walking past as he pulled his hood down over his eyes. Besides obscuring his vision, the hood did little to keep the rain out his eyes. The strain on his body was great. The ache in his head had begun to blur his already week vision. Wind ripping at the frail body made balancing an almost impossible task.

As most great things start out, this too began small. Growing with every hazy breath taken. With every groaning shiver that raked his entire body. Every curse, every moan, every complaint stocked itself for the impending the reaction until it could be held back no longer. The oddest sensation provoked his scenes. While being too deeply immersed, Eiri proceeded to walk without noticing the uprooted suitcase perched in the middle of the road. While contemplating his body's seemingly irregular functions the world seemed to upright itself in a matter of seconds. Lying dazed on his back, Eiri blinked quizzically from the unfamiliar position.

Coming to terms of what just took place and cursing, Eiri quickly composed himself, flushing red from embarrassment. Turning around, he glared down at the culprit. Glancing around this person, Eiri noticed more items that were seemingly out of place. After delivering a swift kick to the assaulting suitcase, which resulted in a badly stubbed toe, Eiri hobbled over to further examine the odd array of objects.

Clothing of all sorts lay skew from unexplainable causes. Shirts of different assortments, though mostly tank tops, were gathered in small piles surrounding the suitcase. Shrugging, Eiri slowly made his way through the piles of jeans and underwear. But no matter how tack full his efforts were, Eiri still, somehow, managed to get his feet tangled in a pair of gray boxer shorts while stepping on a full tube of tooth paste causing it to explode all over his foot. Once again cursing, he began to wipe the fluoride assaulted boots on a vintage Hello Kitty shirt. While busy rubbing a hole in his new pair of boots, something caught his eye.

A single figure sat at the curve of the sidewalk seemingly unaware of the constant rain. Blinking the water back from his blue flooded eyes to make sure that the spectacle was truly happening and not hypothermia taking its toll, Eiri called, "hey kid what are you stupid?" But he received no response. Narrowing his eyes Eiri continued stare at the odd boy. As did the surrounding landscape this boy seemed familiar as well.

The boy's cheaply dyed hair clung to his round face in awkward waves. His white t-shirt, drenched from the rain, clung to the much too skinny body. Thread bare jeans shrunk to fit the narrow hips and meager legs.

Eiri became captivated by the stranger that he knew so well. He recalled the feel of the boy's slick sweaty skin beneath his rough finger tips. The taste of the boy's swollen lips. The feeling of the boy's hair as his elegant fingers groped from the roots down to the broken ends. How he, Eiri, found pleasure in hearing the screams that were emitted from the quant little mouth.

It sickened him.

Scattering rain drops settled along the fragile threads of Eiri's blond hair, utterly shattering the delicately constructed web as he furiously shook his head to rid himself of such unsettling ideals. Sniffing imprudently, Eiri gave one last look to the dissolving boy…"Huh," doing a double take Eiri saw that the boy was indeed melting.

Odd

Dripping pigments merged into a soup of awful colors. Dregs of pinks, blues, browns, violets, and grays stirred the senses and blurred the hopeless mind. The drab landscape illuminated the shadow of once been.

He really was not there…

Like the rain, he too disappeared.

Kind of sad.

I wanted his golf clubs.

A dying orchard. Once grieved no one breathed another word. People cried. Everyone cries but not for him. Just like the rain that day, the boy simply faded away.

Redundant stanzas ransacked Eiri's mind. Monotone words repeated themselves over and over. Of no importance, yet rang with indifference as the boy dissolved with the failing light. A waste of one's breath and concern.

Quite laughable really.

Yet no such emotion was expressed. For he too was nothing more than a dying orchard. A sensation so sweet it poisoned the senses. Dulling the long dead mind. It left him standing there. A realization. The realization of something for long since thought buried and should have been ingested within the bowels of hundreds of tiny worms.

Falling to his knees a face was engraved upon his eyes. A nameless face. He truly didn't care.

Then why was he dying.

Like an insignificant goddamned flower he wilted. No one dared to pick up the pieces of broken man.

It was too messy.

The wind blew the symmetrical trees, sentencing their tear drops downward toward a burial. Still on his knees he breathed though it was no easy task. For nothing is easy when you are beyond the repair of glue and staples.

The trees stopped sobbing…

Gasping for breath Eiri's gaze held the image of his ceiling. Sweat soaked sheets lay in ribbons around his naked body.

He laughed

Laughed harder than he ever had in his entire life. For petals don't appreciate being trampled by the oncoming rain.

End Prologues both part one and two


End file.
